Nokia Windows 8 tablet touted for 2012

Nokia, according to Digitimes at least, is readying a 10-inch tablet that will come rocking with Microsoft's new touch-friendly OS, Windows 8.

Packing a "dual-core platform" from Qualcomm (so presumably the S4) the Nokia tablet could land "in the fourth quarter of 2012" and 200,000 units of the Compal Electronics manufactured devices could be shipped in the first batch.

At Mobile World Congress earlier this month Niklas Savander, an executive vice-president at Nokia, told Pocket-lint: "The tablet is an interesting market for someone like Nokia because it is not cannibalising handset sales, it is cannibalising PC sales."

He was keen to emphasise however that, if Nokia were to release a tablet device, it would need to be different from the rest. "If we are going to be in that market we need to have a different point of view, because being the 101st maker isn't really a commercial or consumer proposition," he said.

Windows 8 rather than Windows Phone would definitely be "different" from Nokia, so who knows - maybe Digitimes is on the money here.

The Taipei-based publication does have previous with reporting on Nokia tablets, though. In 2010 it reported that Nokia had already began testing some Foxconn manufactured engineering samples and was looking at a tablet release before the year was out.

So we'll reserve judgement on this particular Nokia tablet rumour for now.